That invasion was part of a wave of colonialism which really deserves the title of World War 1.

Some European nations conquered most of the rest of the world – Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, Asia, the Americas and Africa.

Was any non-European nation not invaded? How is that not World War 1?

Blood stained the wattle of this land – but nevertheless there are some good things that have since arisen in Australia.

I can't agree with Rosemary Crossland (Letters, January 19) about our efficient healthcare system.

Someone recently died while waiting in an emergency department.

Or our temperate climate. Tell that to the fish in the Murray River.

Our economy is based on inequality and cruelty to the homeless.

Each new government takes away more of our human rights and freedoms, in the name of security.

But we do still have the freedom to discuss all this and there is some slim hope in that. Our history is mixed.

We can't spend Australia Day congratulating ourselves on living in a perfect country. Our nation is steeped in the sadness of Aboriginal people, the cruelty of having used convict labour (and wage theft today) and the corruption that gave rise to the Kelly gang and which we are still battling today in more sophisticated forms.

Many women suffer from domestic violence and many men kill themselves in despair.

Despite all this, we are still brave and optimistic enough to believe in ideals like equality, freedom and inclusiveness. We can both acknowledge our wretched mistakes and also keep aspiring to a better future.

That kind of honesty and courage is worth celebrating on Australia Day.

Rosemary Walters, Palmerston

Has Wendy Squires lost the plot ("The Australia we are losing", p12 Forum CT Jan 19)?

Our Prime Minister should be applauded for initiating discussion on appropriate dress for Australia Day. There's grand opportunity for multiple expression of "appropriate".

A possum-skin cloak in Tasmania, Scott Morrison wrapped in a blank white sheet emboldened by "Meriton Towers"; Brendan Nelson in army rig, overlain by a hospital-ship flag, and a shoulder-holstered replica of Winston Churchill's Boer War pistol.

Appropriate music? Perhaps the Didge for Tassie and even Cornwallis (Dauan) Island; in between, choral We Will Gather at the River, and pipes and drums the Black Bear ... Truly multi-cultured.

Colin Samundsett, Farrer

Christine Bennett (Letters, January 20) entirely misses the point when arguing the national day should be changed from January 26.

Australia Day commemorates the founding in 1788 of what has become a multicultural nation made up of peoples who migrated here from around the world and the succeeding generations.

Together over the past 230 years they have successfully created the great nation of Australia.

Yes, there were people here before 1788. Australia became a continent an estimated 96 million years ago. The first few inhabitants arrived as migrants from Asia some 60,000 years ago, followed prior to 1788 by other small groups also migrating though Asia.

The result was a continent with a very sparse population consisting of many different tribes speaking 300-plus languages derived from 35 separate language groups.

Australia was founded on January 26 in 1788. After a brief interlude of the 'White Australia Policy' it moved on to welcome people from around the world, regardless of race or religion, regardless of whether they are economic migrants or political refugees.

Australia Day on January 26 commemorates that success. We should all be proud of this national day, and suggesting it should be changed is insulting to the Australian people who have together created this great multicultural nation.

Paul Fitzwarryne, Yarralumla

Canada's grant of asylum to the young Saudi Arabian woman Rahaf al-Qunun, whose Twitter posts for help earned public attention around the world after she fled her homeland, highlight aspects of Australia's asylum-seeker policy and practices which at best are inconsistent, and at worst just make no sense at all.

While I applaud Canada's humane action for Rahaf al-Qunun, it raises the question as to why she ought to have been considered for preferential treatment by the Australian authorities in the face of the national disgrace that is the appalling treatment of asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru.

The expeditious consideration of her claims by the Australian authorities (although not expeditious enough) shows that if a person has money and nous enough to board a flight to Australia she or he will very likely be successful in claiming asylum on arrival (or, indeed, with enough publicity, whilst in transit).

What then is the difference between those arriving by plane and those arriving by boat? In reality absolutely nothing.

This clearly throws into sharp relief the contrast between the favourable treatment of one person using the means of air travel, over the incarceration and punishment of many who have used the more challenging and life-threatening means of travel by sea.

Whatever the means of travel, these people were desperately seeking a secure life free from unjust, inhumane and life-threatening treatment at the hands of their persecutors, yet their means of travel has determined their fate. Indeed, inconsistent and without any sensible explanation.

P. J. Bewley, Barton

Why does it take just one day for the UN to find an 18-year-old Saudi woman is a legitimate refugee while Mr Dutton has taken over five years to determine if the people on Nauru and Manus are legitimate refugees? Many cases are still undetermined even after that amount of time.

With the necessary case facts, country information and a proper hearing, a determination can be made within a day.

Under the LNP, though, applicants are confronted with racism, prejudice and cruelty. All is not lost, though. While Australia dithered, Canada came to the aid of this desperate woman.

Ray Armstrong, Tweed Heads South, NSW

Origin Energy shares do not pay franking credits (Bruce Porter, Letters Jan 21).

David Z Hughes, South Melbourne, Vic

Although not spelt out explicitly by Jack Waterford ("Rotten fish, rotten policy", canberratimes.com.au, January 19) cotton farming in the second driest continent on Earth has clearly become unsustainable as witnessed by the catastrophic state of the Murray-Darling river system.

We basically export water that would be needed to maintain a healthy river system.

Cotton production is presently economically viable only because water is too cheap and environmental costs, such as pesticide run-off, lack of environmental flows and decline of biodiversity through huge monoculture landscapes created by bush clearing are being externalised (see here, for example).

What needs to happen is an orderly, well-planned, well-funded transition from cotton farming to energy farming including re-skilling programs and a clear timeline of say 10 years.

The huge laser-levelled cotton fields are perfect sites for solar panel arrays and wind turbines (if there is harvestable wind energy in the area). This must be combined with revegetation and soil improvement to control dust and with large research projects on smart energy technologies, on energy and water efficiency and on reconstruction of and re-skilling in Aboriginal land management and sustainable food production techniques.

There is an instructive and successful precedent for such a massive transformation in the history of the German Ruhrgebiet.

The Ruhrgebiet has gone through an exemplary transformation from Germany's blue-collar heartland into one of the country's most vibrant regions for science and research.

For a detailed history and analysis Google "Industrial Re-structuring in the Ruhr Valley".

Sadly, there is no sign whatsoever that Australian policymakers and politicians are independent, agile and innovative enough to consider such a transformation that would not only benefit local communities, but the whole nation.

Jochen Zeil, Hackett

Peter Snowdon (Letters, January 16) proposes we call domestic violence "domestic terrorism". I have a better suggestion.

Let's call domestic violence what it is, namely "violence". Drop the word "domestic". Adding it has implied, in a patriarchal society, that the home is somehow a different place summed up in the saying "A man's home is his castle" and what happens in the home, stays in the home.

Even the police have been reluctant to interfere.

A similar argument can made about sport.

Paul Kringas, Giralang

There is no place for the behaviour of Bernard Tomic and Lleyton Hewitt in tennis.

Can I respectfully suggest they join the Liberal Party immediately.

John Howarth, Weston

I was very disappointed, but far from surprised, to read of Prime Minister Morrison's dismissive attitude to the plight of Pacific island nations, such as Fiji, which are already facing serious effects of climate change ("PM sticks to climate plan despite Fiji plea", January 19, p23).

Mr Morrison said that Australia's emissions reduction targets, which are woefully inadequate, will remain unchanged.

Instead, his government – at least until the forthcoming election – will spend an unspecified amount of money on tackling the effects of climate change.

In the meantime, the ABC has reported that only one of the big four banks, the Commonwealth, has continued to reduce its investment in fossil fuels. Westpac increased these investments by 140 per cent.

In a paper published in the journal Science Advances, researchers wrote that at least 60 per cent of wild coffee species may die out because of climate change.

The lead author of the paper said: "Ultimately, we need to reverse deforestation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

There is a straightforward way of encouraging reductions in emissions.

Crikey reported that in the US a gathering of many of the world's leading economists, including all living Federal Reserve chairs and several Nobel Prize winners, released a statement to the effect that a carbon tax is "the most cost-effective lever to reduce emissions at the scale and speed that is necessary."

In the face of all this evidence and argument Scott Morrison is determined to place the interests of Australian businesses – notably those involved with fossil fuels – ahead of the welfare of not just Pacific island nations, but the whole world.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

Glenys Byrne (Letters 18 January) asks why the welfare of Belconnen commuters is disregarded?

It's simple.

Government policy since 2012 has been to encourage urban intensification along transit ways.

An outcome of this policy will be increased traffic congestion.

There will also be Parramatta Road lookalikes along roads such as Northbourne and Adelaide avenues.

It has nothing to do with good planning.

It's simply because the government thinks it can raise a heap of money by encouraging development along these transport corridors.

David Denham, Griffith

In two years Canberra's water storages have gone from full to two-thirds capacity.

If consumption and rainfall remain the same, this means that in four years we will run out of water.

What do we do then?

Take water from the Murrumbidgee and help kill what's left of the Murray-Darling Basin's ecology?

Build a pipe from the coast with a desalination plant and pumps?

Reduce the strong push to increase Canberra's population growth?

Buy bottled water and stop all watering?

We need to decide now to avoid difficult decisions later.

Dave Kelly, Aranda

SWIMMING LESSONS

Bill Shorten's $46million towards school swimming lessons ("Parties splurge on promises", January21, p6) is compassionate, but such free government handouts do nothing to reduce overpopulation. People might think twice about large families if they had to pay for these services themselves.

Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla

RED MOON RISING

So the red moon is rising (blood moon, January20). Perhaps it's time to call in Dan Dare.

Ray Edmondson, Kambah

ELLYSE PERRY END

Manuka Oval surely will have to name its ends before the Test match. The Pool end and Cinema end are sides, not ends. Following the Gabba example would give it the Manuka Circle end and the Manuka Circle end. How about making one the Ellyse Perry end? The other can be the non-Ellyse end for all I care.

S.W.Davey, Torrens

CLIMATE CHANGE

Will the PM send Tony Abbott and Craig Kelly to Fiji to inform the locals climate change is a hoax?

T.Puckett, Ashgrove, Qld

AMERICAN DREAMER

Didn't Trump say he would govern for "all Americans"? Perhaps there are a huge number over there who are not Americans after all. Perhaps he classes just himself and some of his family as true Americans?

Bruce Kennedy, Melba

ANOTHER NAIL IN COFFIN

Kelly O'Dwyer's decision to abandon the Coalition before the 2019 federal election must be seen by realists as another nail in the Coalition coffin.

John Sandilands, Garran

SILENCE IS GOLDEN

Fitting that the mega-decibel queen Maria Shriekapova was defeated by the mercifully quiet Ashleigh Barty. The ITF ought to ban persistent and unrepentant shriekers from the court.

A. Whiddett, Forrest

DAKAR GLORY

Well done, Toby Price, in the Dakar. Iam sure that Andy Caldecott is looking down on you. You have done Australia proud.

Alastair Bridges, Canberra

TRULY SHOCKING

A reading of this magnitude could be just a tremor compared with the impact of the shockwaves following the result of the 2019 federal election("Canberra hit by magnitude 3.1earthquake", CT, p7, January19).

Allan Gibson, Cherrybrook, NSW

INCOMPETENT ASSEMBLY

Some people think we are wrong to refer to our assembly as a town council. I agree. If a council was this incompetent, the state government would have appointed an administrator long ago.

Maria Greene, Curtin

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